A unique initiative for community empowerment (Time of India 10 October 2011)

The youth of Nagla Banjara village in Bharatpur, Rajasthan have taken up street vending with help from the Lupin Foundation. –Photo: Rohit Jain Paras
Jaipur: Through utilisation of existing resources, a large number of street vendors at Nagla Banjara village in Nadbai teshil of Bharatpur district have been helped out to expand their business, construct houses and send their children to school.
The residents of the small Nagla Banjara village, situated near Antara on the Agra-Bikaner National Highway, are traditionally known in eastern Rajasthan as “Pheri Wallas” (street vendors). They travel to far-off villages and sell items of daily use mostly on bicycles and handcarts.
The village has about 100 households mostly of the people belonging to the Banjara (nomad) clan. They were earlier engaged in buying and selling of the cattle used in agricultural farms, but their utility ended after the advent of mechanisation in the agriculture sector. For several years now, they have taken up street vending as their principal vocation.
The Banjaras travel to the rural areas not just in Rajasthan but also in the States such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Orissa, Punjab and Haryana, where they have been earning good profits by selling different kinds of commodities.
For street vending, they bring the goods such as utensils, wooden and metal items and cosmetic products from the cities and sell them in the villages. In the absence of adequate capital, they had to travel earlier to the cities over and over again for buying the merchandise.
Sixty per cent of the villagers are engaged in street vending, while the rest work as farm labourers to earn their livelihood, as they do not own any agricultural land. Women rear the cattle to supplement the family income. On any given day, one can only find old people, women and children in the village during the day, while the youths venture out for vending.
On the development front, 80 per cent of the families in Nagla Banjara did not have a brick house till about a year ago and most of them were staying in the huts with thatched roof and sheds erected on pasture land. Barely 20 to 30 persons were literate, even though there is a primary school in the village.
The Lupin Human Welfare and Research Foundation – the corporate social responsibility wing of pharmaceutical major Lupin – adopted Nagla Banjara about a year ago with the intention of launching all-round development works for benefiting the local population.
The first task it took up was getting loans of Rs.25,000 each to 53 persons from the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for construction of brick houses to replace the huts and sheds. Ten other households were helped out in getting financial assistance from the Chief Minister's Below Poverty Line Housing Scheme.
According to Lupin Foundation Executive Director Sita Ram Gupta here, brick houses are being constructed at a fast pace in the village and many of the dusty pathways have been converted into regular roads by utilising the MP's Local Area Development Fund.
The Lupin Foundation laid emphasis on revamping of street vending as an existing resource for livelihood. It gave loans of Rs.20,000 each on easy terms to 78 youths for purchasing items for selling and gave training for fabrication of metal chains to 10 women in the village. Three others were provided with the buffaloes of the improved ‘Murra' breed.
Mr. Gupta points out that the people in the village have now understood the significance of education, as it helps and provides expertise even in a work like street vending. Attempts are underway to bring the out-of-school children to new education centres.
The State Government has since joined the efforts of Lupin Foundation to ensure the village's development and installed separate drinking water tanks for human and cattle consumption. Besides, the youths belonging to BPL families are being trained under the Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana for working as security guards.
Having got information about the Government's welfare schemes, the villagers now approach the elected representatives of Panchayati Raj institutions for getting their benefits. The sustained year-long efforts have seemingly ensured the nondescript village's march on the road to progress and prosperity.
The villagers' empowerment along with the creation of new livelihood opportunities has generated a model for others for taking similar initiatives, he says.